


To Judge The World By Fire

by etoilecourageuse



Category: Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drowning, F/F, Fire, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 11:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2506733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoilecourageuse/pseuds/etoilecourageuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No man had ever possessed the ability to understand her lady; some were appalled by her shamelessness, some by her lack of kindness, but it was not in Rebecca’s nature to be kind, and Danny knew it better than anyone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Judge The World By Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluemermaid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemermaid/gifts).



> I really hope that you like this! This is my first time writing Rebecca, but I have an elaborate head-canon for Mrs Danvers that I always love to expand and modify by looking at her whole fascinating story in different lights. Happy Halloween!

Her bedchamber was small and modest, appropriate for a simple servant – and she was a servant, nothing else – but Mrs Danvers had never complained. Wouldn’t forget where she came from, much unlike many of her subordinates. How foolish these girls were to believe that a featherbed and regular meals were to make them better people, superior to others, to those who had once called themselves their closest friends. How foolish these girls were, and how much she despised them… 

No. No, Mrs Danvers had never denied her origins, had never forgotten about where she came from, and neither had Rebecca. Sometimes, when she had been angry or sad (and of course, she would never show her sadness to anyone but her), she had made her feel her inferiority, whether by words or simply by the way she looked at her, but she had never cared; why should she care, care enough to perhaps deny herself if she wasn’t ashamed of who she was? 

“Danny,” her Mistress would tell her and throw her beautiful dark curls back for her to brush them. “I sometimes wish I were you. How little problems you lowborn people must have compared to the likes of us!”

Danny – she had always despised nicknames, as they never appeared appropriate to her, but she had grown fond of that particular one over the years –merely smiled and continued to brush her hair until Rebecca had raised her arm and enclosed her slender fingers around her wrist. How beautiful she was when she smiled back at her, how much more beautiful than usual. 

“At least you know your manners,” she continued, in a nearly apologetic way. “I couldn’t stand another unkempt chit of a girl feigning to be a lady in the moment she leaves her piggery and steps through the doors of an actual home. You are not like them, oh no, not you… If it only weren’t for that terrible bloodline of yours! Such a pity… But if you were truly born a lady, we wouldn’t be here in this room, would we? I am glad that things aren’t different, Danny, that you are who you are, and secretly you are glad, too. Aren’t you, love?”

“Of course, Madam,” Danny whispered, her heart palpitating within her chest. There was no viciousness in her lady’s words, she knew; her intentions were not spiteful as some of her enviers claimed. She wouldn’t look at her like this, if they were… _Secretly you are glad that things aren’t different, Danny,_ she had told her and then laughed, that laugh of hers that took her breath away. Oh, how right she had been… How right indeed. 

She wasn’t ashamed of who she was, had never been; her father had nearly worked himself to death in order to feed his family, yet desired what seemed like luxury to her and a matter of course to others, but she had never envied those who appeared wealthy and superior to her. It was love that mattered to her, the love of her family, nothing else. Why should she care whether she was a lady or not, why should she care whether her husband (who had made her a widow at the age of eighteen and left her nothing but his name) were to buy her fur and jewellery when what truly mattered could not possibly be bought with money? 

Rebecca, however, had never suffered any want. Rebecca had grown up in luxury, did not know the life of those she looked down at. Rebecca was not at all like her… 

At night, however, none of it would matter any longer. At night, in the moment of their first touch, their bloodlines were forgotten. At night, they no longer were mistress and maid but Rebecca and Danny, confidants, lovers, sisters. At night they were one, in a way that no man would ever be capable of understanding. 

No man had ever possessed the ability to understand her lady; some were appalled by her shamelessness, some by her lack of kindness, but it was not in Rebecca’s nature to be kind, and Danny knew it better than anyone else; she could only laugh at those damned fools who came to propose to her in the belief that they could change her, terrified of a woman’s strength. 

Maxim de Winter seemed like any other at first — tall and handsome, overly formal in the way he spoke, yet he appeared not at all appalled, he appeared not at all terrified of her. Soon, too soon, they moved to Manderley and when during the day to Danny she would be Mrs de Winter, at night she remained Rebecca, _her_ Rebecca and no one else’s. Her name had changed in the moment she married – a man who seemed different yet would always remain a man – her name and her name alone, while she had always remained the same until her life had come to such an abrupt end. 

How different they were, Danny sometimes thought, like fire and ice. Rebecca fierce, never afraid to hold back and she quiet, restrained under any circumstances. How different were the lives they lived, the ways they grew up, the values they were taught, and how different were their ways to die. 

Fire could only be tamed by water, they said, and the water had claimed Rebecca in the cruellest way, had claimed yet never fully taken her, as her spirit was still in Manderley, would never leave her, would never be expelled, not by Maxim de Winter and not by his second wife who prided herself with his name yet was worth nothing more than a servant girl. Ice, however… Ice was to be molten by fire. Rebecca’s fire had long consumed Danny, had long ignited a flame that would never die out, and in the fire she were to perish, were to follow her lady into the grave, into another world where no men were to separate them, where fire and ice were to merge together as one, a world where only they would matter. 

The torch fell from her hands as she laid down on her bed, _their_ bed; Mrs Danvers closed her eyes, spreading her arms to welcome the flames like old friends… And from far away she could hear Rebecca’s quiet laugh.


End file.
